


(hokuje) déjà vu (you are my endless karma)

by jc_lewis



Category: SixTONES (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Fallen Angels, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jc_lewis/pseuds/jc_lewis
Summary: Jesse was the sun and Hokuto was the moon. They never were meant to exist in the same sky. Yet every evening when Jesse drove his solar chariot of fire into the sunset, there was always a moment - a glimpse of the boy who drew up the moon every night. The beginning of their fateful love, of their endless karma.
Relationships: Jesse Lewis/Matsumura Hokuto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	(hokuje) déjà vu (you are my endless karma)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@seohayami_s on twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40seohayami_s+on+twitter).



> hi all! your local hokuje trash back at it again with another fantasy au one-shot fanfic i threw together in one sitting. all thanks to miss sera (@seohayami_s) on twitter, a fellow jesse-tan, hokuje shipper, and a loyal reader <3 
> 
> love u and this is for u <3 
> 
> based off of "kimi wa karma" by kinki kids, covered by jesse lewis and matsumura hokuto
> 
> p.s. i drew inspiration from a chinese hokuje fic i read as well.

There was a feeling Jesse never found a name for. Later, someone explained to him it was called _dejavu_ and so he opened the dictionary and looked up the word.

“ _Tedious familiarity. early 20th century: French, literally ‘already seen’_ ” 

Jesse ran his finger over the words again and again, as if it would help him figure out the never ending present he continued to experience. The episodes of unexplainable heartache. The empty feeling like a fragment of his soul was always missing and had been for the last six hundred years. 

It had so much become a theme in his long life, that even though he was overall a nomad to avoid his non-aging secret from being exposed - he still collected everything that reminded him of the something that was missing. 

Red spider lilies. It didn’t matter how many times or how long he studied the wall full of red spider lilies of different forms and shapes. Paintings. Photographs. Sculptures. Poems. 

Jesse knew he wasn’t even close to remembering. He held his head in agony, but it was nothing new. 

* * *

Jesse was the sun and Hokuto was the moon. They never were meant to exist in the same sky. Yet every evening when Jesse drove his solar chariot of fire into the sunset, there was always a moment - a glimpse of the boy who drew up the moon every night. 

Hokuto looked into his bathroom mirror after waking from another dream about Jesse, the once brightest angel to exist in the heavens. Even though he was a mere human now, he still dreamt of the careless days they spent, thinking their love was unmatched in every realm. 

He scoffed at himself and when he raised his arm to run his fingers through his hair he remembered the branding on his arm, tattooed deep into his bones for eternity. Hokuto carefully ran his finger over the precise carvings on his arm of the phases of the moon. 

From new moon to full moon and time and time again, suddenly he wasn’t even sure how many lifetimes it had been now. 

Without fail, Hokuto could never forget the pain of loving and losing. Who said their love knew no bounds? That lust and dream and love was undefeatable. 

Yet like a moth drawn to a fire, Hokuto always found Jesse. No matter which lifetime it was.

* * *

When Jesse first woke up, he could hardly make out where he was. There was fire, a lot of it. It crackled loudly and when he could finally muster enough energy to sit up, he found himself lying in a puddle of feathers tainted red, and he had been stripped of his wings. Much like the feathers, he was battered from head to toe - blood mixed with shards of debris. 

When he finally tilted his head up, he saw a full moon and was overwhelmed with an unexplained sadness. In what looked like the ruins of hell, he saw the moonlight for seven whole days. 

Jesse didn’t weep. He didn’t shed a tear - he couldn't find a reason. It was the most painful night of his existence. 

* * *

In his first lifetime as a human, Hokuto dedicated his entire life to finding Jesse. He was a traveling artist, sickeningly obsessed with the moon. His parents always thought it had to do with his birthmarks of the moon phases on his forearm.

Only Hokuto knew - that he was the lunar angel in his last life and with every exhibit he held he hoped he would be able to find Jesse, somewhere. After kneeling and pleading in front of the gods for a hundred years, the deities finally granted him reincarnation to find Jesse, only Hokuto had no idea where Jesse was anymore. It was one of the many terms he agreed to. 

And like the human he was, in his limited lifetime - he only spotted Jesse from afar in his later years. In a field of red spider lilies, Hokuto found Jesse wandering down the small dirt road that ran through the field.

His eyes now creased with wrinkles, welled up with tears - wondering how after nearly two hundred years Jesse still looked as perfect as he remembered him to be. Even without wings, he was angelic, untainted. Hokuto leaned on his cane, his legs weak from years of relentless travel, and shakily wobbled forward. As an angel he never knew what it was to age and never had been more miserable. 

Perhaps this was exactly how they were meant to be punished, after getting caught for abandoning the world in a sunless moonless hell by eloping. 

His bones felt brittle in a sharp breeze. Having spent his entire life alone, he knew in human terms this meant he was to die alone as well. Who could he blame? 

As the remnants of Jesse’s silhouette grew smaller, Hokuto crumbled onto the floor, his heart shredded; all he wanted was for Jesse to turn around, for one split second. A fraction of a second. A thousandth of a second. 

Hokuto blamed Jesse’s last words as he fell out of heaven.

_“Don’t ever forget me, okay?”_

* * *

After nearly two centuries on Earth, Jesse figured out he was not going to age, or die. He was assigned tasks from time to time, designed to help him repent but he always did it soul-lessly. 

His limited powers gave him the ability to manipulate humans. Yet no matter how long he stayed on the human Earth he seemingly could not learn to feel human emotions. 

Except pain. Sometimes he practiced smiling in the mirror. He nearly perfected it; at least to the extent which he saw some humans say and do. 

On his 180th year on Earth, he traveled North into what would be modern Saitama later to handle a small misdemeanor of an evil spirit. It was that night he felt that strong sense; Jesse followed it and found himself in a field of red spider lilies. In the sea of red, he stood still and closed his eyes. And for the first time, he felt a sense of peace and belonging. Something he never knew of, not after the night he mysteriously woke up in the ruins and not a day after. 

Jesse didn’t know what or why that night was special. He only knew every time he went back after, the feeling was gone. Vanished like it never existed, like his memories of a past life. 

* * *

Over and over again, like a motif in his never-ending life Jesse continued to see the flower he came to know as the _manjushage._ And every time, he was reminded of the first time in that field during the Edo period. 

After many human lifetimes on Earth, Jesse had accumulated a small heap of wealth of what humans call ‘money’. It was a convenient thing, helping him purchase everything from his small mansion to pizza everyday. Not that he really needed to eat, but there was something magical about cheese. It tasted good and it kept him sane. 

This particular autumn night was especially chilly, especially since he always enjoyed working at night. The moon’s company always helped him feel a tad less lonely. He grabbed his red scarf and vanished out the door in a flash. By the time Jesse reached the urban area from the city outskirts, the moon had already risen high into the sky. He walked non-discreetly through the streets searching for the mischievous devil he had set out to exterminate. Over time, he learned to conceal himself well within large crowds of people. Centuries of practice, of course. 

As Jesse walked past the convenience store, the automatic doors slid open and cans of coffee tumbled off the shelf landing at his feet. And in a flash, a shadow zipped past him and into the distance. 

_Not so fast._

Jesse hurried after the precarious being into an empty office building after hours. With each careful step, he found himself being watched. Patience was yet another emotion Jesse never learned. He quickly located and unveiled the invisible cloak the devil put on, grabbing it by the neck and violently threw it against the wall of glass, crisply shattering the wall into shards. 

Jesse stepped over the shards of glass to send the devil back to the hell it escaped from, until a human voice emerged from behind him.

“ J..e...sse? ” It was Hokuto. Many lifetimes deep into his reincarnations.

Jesse froze in place. _600 years. He never told a soul his name._

And there it was again. The same headache. The chronic pain. Jesse fell on his knees, grabbing his head in splitting agony. Seeing this, the devil grabbed the human who had uttered Jesse’s name and pushed him across the room, tripping through the shards of glass. 

The moment before Hokuto felt himself tumbled into the autumn air, the man locked eyes with the hunter. And by the reflex of many centuries, both of their visions instantaneously blurred with tears. 

Jesse didn’t even know he knew how to cry. 

All at once, Jesse felt a blinding rage and tore the devil apart before charging for the man who was descending through the air. He felt something in his bones, a predetermined destiny, words he couldn’t conjure into phrases. 

With a blind faith Jesse dived and caught Hokuto in his arms. The images of his first seven nights on the human Earth flashed before his eyes when he saw the carvings on Hokuto’s arm. For what seemed like lifetimes of longing later, Jesse gracefully landed on the ground with Hokuto properly in his arms. 

The man looked up at the previously angelic being, “It really is you.” 

“Why do you know me?” Jesse’s voice was gentle, by instinct. Kinder and softer than he ever knew how since his time on Earth.

“Silly, you told me to never forget you.” His voice mixed with the greatest happiness and the deepest sadness. Of lifetimes of missing him. Of lifetimes of loneliness. Of lifetimes of vanishing silhouettes. Of lifetimes of wondering if their love had really been what they thought it was. 

“Whether you remember or not, I was born to find you. To love you. Again and again.” Hokuto mustered up a bittersweet smile. _How could I ever forget?_

He hesitantly lifted his hand to touch Jesse’s face, completely terrified that he was not real. Jesse’s face was real yet devoid of warmth. It wrenched his heart to see the boy whose smile rose the sun and change the seasons, forget the kind of warmth he used to radiate. Hokuto could hardly imagine the kind of agony Jesse experienced in the last six hundred years. 

Jesse was still conjuring up words. He hadn’t talked so much as a few sentences to anyone in the last hundred or so years. 

“I know you told me to stay, that you would...” Hokuto began but was cut short.

“...Bear the karma for you. You are...my karma…” Jesse finished Hokuto’s sentence. It wasn’t a memory, but words that showed up in his mind. He looked into Hokuto’s eyes, lost, enigmatic as the moon.

A single stem of the familiar red spider lily descended into their lap. 

“This may be the beginning of the end in this lifetime, but I will be born again and again. And every time I will find you.” It was Hokuto’s turn to protect Jesse. 

For the first time, somehow Jesse smiled. One reminiscent of the boy who rose the sun every morning and shifted the seasons every year. 

And they knew. 

Even if they had to fall in love over and over again, stuck in an endless karma, Hokuto was going to be there, to look for Jesse every time. Every life time. With no regrets. 

**Author's Note:**

> quick clarification if anyone is confused. Feel free to interpret the story however you like, but the way i visualized it - it jumps between past and present. 
> 
> in present day, jesse is trying to figure out his episodes of dejavu after hundreds of years of collecting the only thing that triggered a feeling. then it jumps to hokuto present day, remembering what used to be. AND then it goes back to the past, when jesse first descended on earth (as a fallen angel) - to when hokuto first descended on earth reincarnated as a human (his first lifetime from his POV). and in that same time, from jesse’s pov. 
> 
> eventually we end up back in present day again. where they finally meet. one never have died but with no memories and the other having gone through lifetimes but fully remembering everything. 
> 
> p.s. red spider lilies also known as the flower of the other side, symbolizes last farewells and memories of the past 
> 
> and in case you hadn’t caught it, the seven days of moonlight when jesse first fell to earth was because he was no longer there to rise the sun and instead hokuto left by himself to draw the moon.


End file.
